New Year’s Note

Well, I don’t have any good new year’s photo so I decided to use this old photo that was taken at my campus. My second half of year 2007 has been very difficult. I wouldn’t go into the details but, I’ve been very stressed physically and emotionally. I’m glad it’s almost over. I’m still having stressful tasks to finish before Feb is over but, as long as I get 7 hours of sleep at night, I might find back my usual optimism.

The above photo was taken really early morning around 7:40 am. It was Sunday but, I had to go to the campus by 8 am in order to full fill some administrative duties. Yeah, there are 300% more administrative work than teaching at the universities here & they never tell you the schedule until few days before. It’s like a reality show on TV when you get a special note from the host to tell you what to do next. Every semester, my sleep schedule gets wacky – meaning sleeping about 3, 4 hours a day during school days… after 8 months, I got sick. Perhaps everyone else is immune at not sleeping enough hours and working around the clock even they are at their 40’s here but, I’m certain that I’m not made for that.

However, teaching is a blessing. Teaching my talented students is like resting in a beautiful island in the middle of storm. I guess teaching them & getting summer and winter vacations are barely keeping me here…although I begin to wonder if I’m shortening my lifespan by taking so much unnecessary stress from this unchangeable society. I need to figure out how to get by without stress… This is a new challenge since I’ve never had this intense stress before. First thing is to figure out what really stress me. Then I could see what would improve the situation. I usually don’t have New Year’s resolution but, perhaps “Being free (almost) from stress” would be the one this year. Happy New Year!!!

I think I can be cool if I can get enough sleep a day. That’s a bottom of it. What to do about it…huh?